Midas
by NorthernTrash-x
Summary: Ulquiorra/OC. She kept telling herself, through the bars of a prison, anything is possible.


Character described and requested by 3R15UKOUM31. This was originally meant to be a ficlet in my Bleach collection, but has been extended as a special giftfic to her for the chance to discuss European politics. Thank you, but I do apologise- I really doubt that this was what you wanted.

OC: Ciara Kellogg Faber

OC x Ulquiorra

**Midas**

_"I slap the water and watch  
The fish dance t__o the ripples of us_  
_We're just dull blue duds_  
_Blinking eyes encased in rust_  
_This ain't a miracle"_  
Biffy Clyro

"Why was I saved?"

The guard on duty that watch swallowed, a sound deafening to her own ears, at his voice; cool, tempered, and not at all hoarse from the weeks of disuse. He had not moved from his bed, she could tell, for she could see him in the reflective glass opposite the bars of the small window in the cell door that had been put there for the very purpose of watching the inmates. He remained unearthly still, as if dead; you had to strain to see the rise and fall of his chest, and the sound of his breath was inaudible to all but the most skilled of ears.

He might not have even said it at all- but the trained and professional part of her knew for a fact that he had- for had she not been waiting for such a moment for all these weeks? For, or so it seemed, all her life?

Why had he been saved, indeed? He, as one of the few survivors of the massacre at Hueco Mundo, was sentenced to imprisonment until- ominously- further notice. He should count himself lucky (or, perhaps, unlucky) that it had been the Fourth division who had come across him sheltering and recuperating in the sands around Las Noches; they were, generally, not inclined to raise a blade in battle, and too had learnt long ago that the word of their Captain was a law more absolute than was delivered in every other division, where a shinigami might feel obliged to kill him in hasty retribution despite the orders of their superiors.

But, political motives of the new powers that be were swayed by a sudden, vast lash of liberal logic: that being, if the Vizards were simply manipulated victims of a great wrong, then surely the Arrancar were no different? Near destroyed by the evil of Aizen's rule, these people claimed, and then forced to do his will- unfair, unjust, downright _wrong_ to hunt them out and punish them, for after all, you wouldn't punish a dog for biting on his master's command, would you? Captain Unohana had attended these speeches with her normal calm smile- whether or not she agreed it was uncertain, but when the Captain-Commander gave the order that they should be brought in for 'consideration', she had nodded and obeyed.

As for this guard in particular, she did not agree particularly with the sympathisers: or rather, their way of talking offended her, commenting on them as if they were endangered animals. They were people as much as she was, and, had the war not gone the other way, then she- as just one more drone in an army- would be in the same position.

Being on the wrong side does not make you evil, after all; it just makes you the defeated, determined to go down in history in whatever way the victor sees fit.

Cool walls of impermeable rock kept him trapped and he (as well as the other survivors, none of which he had seen) were kept like the caged animals that she was convinced that they were not, guarded by a rotation of shinigami. She supposed that he should count himself lucky that the Twelfth Division had not won over the Captain Commander in convincing him that they should 'take care' of the prisoners for inspection, because everyone knew that anyone who Captain Kurotsuchi found interesting rarely came back whole- mentally or physically.

She found herself taking more and more shifts here; people did not like to guard this one, for he was deathly silent and never moved, except for the occasional flicker of his eyes that would send shivers up her spine with their uncanny, deceptive acquiescence. The other prisoners screamed and raged and howled, but he, he was disturbing in his silent compliancy.

She couldn't help it, though- she found it captivating, and she knew that he looked at her differently, if only a little, than he looked at any of his other captors.

The current guard was no well known face around the divisions, although if you did happen to see a girl running somewhere with a pile of paperwork higher than her face it might well have been her. Then again, it could have been anyone in the Eighth division, Lieutenant Ise having perfected the art of delegation in order to complete all of the work that their Captain effortlessly avoided- and oh, how she had often cursed whatever internal system that had placed her as an unranked Eighth Division shinigami, although she had made it work for her, and had risen to the rank of seventh seat with a steady progression that many would envy. People were beginning to notice her a little more now, if only by name and rank- as that one who was taking one too many prison shifts to be left without suspicion. Unfortunately, the bitter and paranoid aftertaste of the war still permeated them, and the Shinigami forces were rife with mistrust.

She should have been more careful about it, but what had first been no more than a passing interest (spurred, she was sure, by her secret wish that she could have been posted to the Twelfth division, and the obvious allure that the prisoners had to that division) had developed into something much, much deeper.

She would watch him in the glass for hours at a time, often swapping shifts with people so that she no longer did the more mundane jobs out in the open and free air that everyone preferred; instead, she would spend as long as she could watching for movement, watching the breeze from the small window blow strands of his dark hair against the white of his mask, a contrast assuredly contradictory. She had been waiting, waiting for a moment like this, hadn't she? For a chance to speak to him? And of course, he must have been waiting for a time to speak to her, as well? To see if his love was reciprocated.

Her heart sang for joy, but her mouth was dry with anxiety.

She swallowed, a little nervously, wondering if her voice would sound worse off than his, suspecting that it did.

"The Gotei thirteen has taken pity on you."

There came from him then a strange, barking sort of noise, guttural and entirely humourless. A laugh? It was hard to tell. She jotted this down in the log book: after the description Kurosaki had given them all about his emotionless tendencies, this seemed out of order, out of line. Then, she supposed, nearly dying can change people in the strangest of ways.

"Pity?"

His voice was dry and completely cool, indifferent to such an extent that she began to wonder if she had imagined that strange noise from before. Her hands automatically tightened around the hilt of her zanpakuto without her noticing, and she edged towards the grill in the door.

"He would not have shown you pity."

She had a feeling that the 'he' was capitalized in the prisoner's mind: like how one would think of a God, perhaps, or someone half-forgotten, emphasis needed as a reminder.

No more came from him that day, and she was shook to sense by the scream from down the corridor of another imprisoned enemy, making her once more thankful for the dignity of his silence throughout, despite how the rest of her colleagues hated it. The others made as much noise as they could, though the worst ones were those who begged, faces pressed into the ground as they pleaded to be allowed to see the sands of their home again. They did not understand this place, and many of the weaker ones were starving, not being able to subsist without their horrific diet of souls and spiritual power.

She would not admit that she went home every night with him on her mind, but this day she felt she had reason to do so, the question of him ripe and suffocating in her mouth. She knew so little of him from just watching him and the basic comprehensive notes that the guards were given: she had nowhere near enough authority to warrant anything else. And yet her mind craved for it: craved for knowledge of him in such a way that it felt depraved, a dirty secret, blood on the sheets. She knew well the consequences of such an obsession, such a love, and yet…

And yet she woke each morning to touch her cheeks, to see if sleep-shed tears had left tracks of green down her face, as well.

She wondered if there was a diagnosed matching disease to Stockholm's Syndrome, or whether she was one of a kind in this regard. She liked to watch him, from behind his bars, and though she knew that it was true there was something so compellingly real about what little she knew about him- it felt like she knew far more that she feasibly could have done, seeing as how he had never divulged anything about himself and the Soul Society knew very little about him at all- only the little that Kurosaki and Inoue had told them. None of the other captured Arrancar would discuss the ones ranked as 'Espada', as if afraid of the repercussions, and that thrilled her as well- on both sides, he was an illicitly taboo subject.

She thought of him, and her breath caught in her throat, her chest exploding into a warmth that felt at odds with his own coolness. She was sure that his skin would be cold to the touch- surely, it must be?

It must be, to be as real as it looked.

The prison cells were a haunting place, and her colleagues did not understand her fascination with working there. She had always been quiet, introverted, but most people had never put her as being particularly odd, as such- just a little shy, maybe. A touch quirky, with her interest in the Twelfth division happenings and her occasionally spacey moments, but this was something else, something a little dangerous.

Her head screamed for her to leave, to swap shifts, to never see him again, but there was something absorbing about how _absolute_ he was- his silence, his presence, his stillness. He was collected, as if he had completely accepted everything- something that both appalled and appealed to her, her who had spent her entire life existing in the comfortable chaos of a normal existance.

"Faber?"

That was her lieutenant, who she might almost class as a friend, who was scowling down at her with- sigh, another- stack of paperwork in her hands, no doubt some sort of form that needed examining for small print that they could not accommodate for. Though the divisions all were under the control of the Captain Commander, each had its own autonomy, and each were run according to its own, sovereign rules, and the will of its Captain. Though a diplomatic theory, in reality it had only proved to provide much more work for everyone.

She smiled up at her lieutenant, nodding her response that she was listening.

"I'm sorry to ask you to do this, but you're the only one who doesn't complain about doing it- but I need you to swap shifts again."

The only shifts that she could mean were the ones watching the prisoners. Work had been divided up between divisions, but the guarding duties had been given to the Eighth and Third, and the lack of Captain in the latter was taking its toll on sharing the shifts, her own division having to take up more that their fair half.

"I wouldn't ask you, but-"

"No, I don't mind at all."

Ise's eyes narrowed.

"Do you not think that you're…"

"That I'm what, Lieutenant?"

But her superior, obviously uncomfortable prying to the private life of another person when she herself was so unwilling to share herself, trailed off, and simply nodded, offering a tight-lipped smile in her direction before dropping the substantial file that she had been carrying on her desk. Faber couldn't even begin to care, though- she was on prison duty again today, when they were meant to alternate days, and it should be an easy feat to trade with whoever was on the cell door of prisoner 348.

Nobody liked guarding _him- _except, that was, herself.

But, it wasn't... it wasn't like she would consider herself to be _obsessed_, or anything.

She just found him entrancing.

To her dismay, when she reached the prison she realised that the man on duty of the former Espada was that suspicious tenth seat from the third, who had more than once made comment on her enjoyment of her task. She dared not ask him to swap, so instead took up position outside the door of the cell of prisoner 401, one of the quieter female arrancar that normally just lay on her bed or stared out of the window, at the sky. Faber didn't really mind watching the ones like her- it was no trouble, and she could let her mind wander.

Today, however, when she got there the arrancar was crouched in the middle of the floor, eyes strangely bright, almost as if feverous. They were instructed not to engage in conversation with the prisoners, and so when she heard whispered chatter from behind her she did not turn: many of them spoke to themselves, anyway. She tensed as she heard the tell-tale sound of rustling fabric from behind her: the prisoner moved with a speed that did not match her frail state, trying to fist a hand into the standard black uniform of her captor, who managed to dance out of the way with a lightness of feet that was surprising. She cursed that these classed as 'lesser threats' stood behind a wall of bars, rather than a door with conventional barred window: it made it much easier for the prisoners, should they wish to cause disruption.

Faber stared awkwardly at the arrancar, who fell to her knees and dissolved into floods of irreconcilable tears. Her uniform showed her ribs, high on her neck but cut across her chest, and they stood out prominently, emphasised by the shadows of the evening light. The creature looked emaciated, weak beyond repair, and she quickly shrunk away from the pool of light that flooded through the window that she had inadvertently thrown herself into, her arms outstretched across the floor towards the bars.

"Please? I..."

She trailed off, and Faber felt her resolve weaken as she took in the pathetically wasted creature in front of her. She glanced from one side to another, but the cells were far apart and this one was between two corners: none of the other guards would be able to see her. She went to her knees but was careful to remain out of reach.

"What's your name?"

These arrancar did not have recorded name- most had refused to give them, even before the powers-that-be had decided it might be best to withhold them, for their own protection from potentially vengeful shinigami. She had known about Ulquiorra's only because his was common knowledge, being such a prominent part of the war.

She looked up, and saw only kindness in the eyes of the girl on the other side of the prison door.

"Loly."

She said it slowly, tasting it, as if she had forgotten.

"We thought… we thought that the Quatro would save us. We can feel him, even here… but he hasn't, he's just as trapped as we are."

She reached a hand out through the bars, and hesitantly Faber took it, feeling the play of bones under her paper-thin, parchment-texture skin. Her eyes were wide as she glanced up, bloodshot and somehow wild. She had the terrifying stare of a madman, and her skin had the red-hot burn of a killing fever. The prisoner was still crying, sobbing into the floor now without care for dignity at the sorrow of her wretchedness.

"Menoly, she was here… but I can't feel her anymore. I think she's… she's…" her voice cracked, resolve broken, and she trailed off, withdrawing her hand.

Faber got to her feet, eyes half-closed, and took up her stance by the door again, as if nothing had happened. The arrancar- Loly, she reminded herself, she had a name as much as she was a person- crawled back to the farthest corner of the cell and curled up there. She did not look back into the cell, and she left when her shift was over, but she passed it the next day.

There was no guard on it then: the small room was empty, the door unlocked and the bare walls and floor scrubbed clean.

There was no sign of the creature, and at that she felt a tug of grief.

She avoided his cell for a week after that, to the relief of her friends and her co-workers, whose words had begun to grate on her, irritating beyond belief at their wide-eyed stares of well-meaning advice that meant nothing.

"We're just a little concerned, Ciara, that's all."

"We just think that… you know, with him gone, and everything, you might be… well…"

"Sort of projecting him onto this prisoner?"

"But it's not him, you know that?"

She sighed. They just didn't understand. Ulquiorra- and how she shivered, to know his name, read in the records that she had sneaked a look at, even though the captors were meant to remain impassive, were meant not to know anything about those that they watched over. She loved him, and he loved her: she was sure of it. For he saw her differently, he saw how lost she was, how they needed each other and how they could live together, far away from this. They would make such a beautiful couple, naked on a bed together, his black hair mingling with her dark red; silver blue eyes looking into emerald green, white skin, tan skin; him and her.

Of course they would. He loved her, she knew that- so why was she spending so much time away from him?

She woke with that thought, and that day swapped shifts once more to stand guard by his door.

He said nothing to her as she arrived, and nothing for hours afterwards, but that did not worry her, because she knew that it meant nothing- it was simply that he was so relaxed around her that he no longer had to force conversation.

"They're deciding your fate tomorrow."

Now what had possessed her to tell him that? She knew that it was against regulations to mention the proceedings of the court on the subject of the prisoners, to anyone- she only knew because she had had to send off the guard reports filed by her division.

It was worth it to see his reaction.

In a moment he had moved, close enough to her so that she could hear the sound of his breath, the beating of his heart- or was that hers? His hand was wrapped around the bars on the door, and she reached to him, touching his fingers a fraction of a second before he withdrew them in a composed movement lacking any haste or awkwardness.

His skin was warm. Terrifyingly so. Not at all as she had imagined.

He looked at her, and his eyes were black, as black as pools of water, the sort that people dive into to find some depth of happiness and meaning; instead, they drown, still not finding the bottom. There was nothing in those eyes, just a shard of reflected light that gave them the only light; just the startling contrast of that terrifying black with the startling green. Beautiful, terrible.

She took her hand away.

He was not all that he seemed. He didn't even know her name. Had he even recognized that she came back, day after day, stood by his door hour after hour, watching him and hoping for him and loving him so completely and hopelessly and utterly? He didn't even see her, did he?

And all of a sudden her carefully constructed dream-world fell around her, slivers of it catching her mind as if they were glass catching the light. Him, his eyes burning with unresolved pain; his bare, white skin against the tan of her own; her tongue against his scars; his mouth against her ear; his words caressing her with their simple and introspective melancholy that you could almost miss. Her, him, the road ahead of them with the Gotei thirteen and Las Noches at their backs, to be forgotten, a new future in front with no Captains or rules or battles or pseudo-Gods. How heavenly, how touching, how lovely.

How fake.

She stifled a small cry as she watched him at the window, and knew that to come back the next day would be a fool's errand. The dream was dead, and he didn't love her. He was a terrible figure of legend and lore and myth and all that she could not touch, the embodiment of everything that would and could send her to death without intention of emotion: he was gorgon, he was chimera, he was siren, he was tide, he was fire, he was Midas.

He would be the death of her.

She had thought that he, unlike the last, would never kiss her and leave her and die, and she was right. But only because, she could see now, there was no space in his arms for anyone.

She bit her lip to stop herself screaming aloud, and ignored the taste of blood in her mouth as all the images that she had half-believed were real- his words, his touch, his laughter, the meaning in those eyes- fell around her like a wave of grief and ruination. She propped herself up on the wall, and breathed deep the air around her, too warm and muffled in the prison. The sun was outside, she reminded herself, sun and blue sky and green grass and friends and a gravestone and the empty half of her bed where he lover had once lain before the war had taken him, but that felt so long ago and she couldn't remember him anymore, only green and white and black and visions of things that were not real: Ulquiorra- and yet, oh, how she still shivered, even now, and the sound of his name!- was not real.

She touched the small scar across the bridge of her nose, the one that she had got when she had collapsed against that gravestone, her face connected with the stone with a hollow, echoing thump.

He was sitting back on his bed, his eyes still staring at her. That depth; for a moment she floundered, and then the panic left, and she sank once more.

Ulquiorra, she thought, the name like manna in her life. What am I thinking?

Of course you love me. For if you don't, what other meaning is there?

Turn me to gold, turn me to stone; either way, I just want to be here, with you, for a little longer.


End file.
